lostcarnival | In a new light

Who: Sherlock and OPEN
What: New changes and video game munchies
When: Very late Day 97
Where: Cookhouse
Warnings: Mentions of drugs, suicide.

Dying made one hungry.

Sherlock was prone to being over dramatic, and would gladly tell anyone who inquired that yes, he was killed three times in the game and yes, for a second there he really thought he was going to end up nullified or actually dead. Being quite pleased that he wasn't a digital slug or dead, he found himself famished and in the mood for something dreadfully unhealthy and/or sweet.

Toby was exhausted and fell asleep back at the trailer (or was mad at him for thinking he really did die), so Sherlock was alone when he went to the Cookhouse.

He went to grab a basket of chips (fries) and a milkshake when it hit him. He'd noticed something strange with his vision when he came back, seeing faint blotches like if he'd looked in the sun for too long or something, but he assumed it had something to do with being in the game, some lingering side effect. He would only be worried if it remained for any length of time. What he didn't expect was a blast of orange and red when he looked into the kitchen.

He shut his eyes immediately, confused, and was shocked that he could still see it. He could see shapes of people, registering as different shades of red and orange, fading to yellow and green. The walls only mitigated some of it, he could see through them, too. It extended nearly as far as his natural vision, but faded into blank nothingness further on. It was heat. Obviously. He couldn't exactly see objects that didn't give off heat. But any heat residue left, was visible, like quickly fading handprints.

"Fascinating," he muttered, opening his eyes again. The effect was fainter coupled with his ordinary vision, giving a slight glow to anything that gave off heat. It was disorienting and off-putting and, quite frankly, neat.

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A grin anyway, he'd probably find that boring. Or exciting.

A slight sigh of relief escaped him. He returned the gentle squeeze, actually quite unused to this method of communication, but it seemed to be highly effective in non-verbally communicating ones' feelings.

"You are very lucky, Helen Magnus," he said honestly. "If I were in your shoes, I would certainly look forward to the adventure. As challenging as it may be, the reward is there in every day of the future."

Though he wasn't sure how'd he deal with leaving John behind. No matter, he'd figure it a way to being him along, somehow.

Sherlock had lived most of his adult life without thought to the future, he'd expected the drugs or his general recklessness to take him. He doubted he'd be much long for this world without John Watson. After Mary died, however, he learned just how valuable his life truly was. And how he should not treat it with such carelessness. He wondered though, would he get tired? Would the adventure finally dull, until he'd seen all that there was to see? He doubted that would be for a long time, if he had such an opportunity.

Edited 2017-05-22 09:59 (UTC)

"Once more into the breach, dear friends," Helen quoted with a soft laugh. What was life but a struggle to survive each and every new day? "If you, my dear Sherlock, were in my shoes, I dare say you'd drive the whole of England mad with your adventures. Much as you do now, I suppose?" She turned her head with a slight quirk of her eyebrow.

Her fingers were careful against the curve of his hand, her thumb an absent brush against his knuckle as if she was still attempting to keep herself present. Or him. Or perhaps the both of them. It was a strange thing being so close to the past and yet still in an ever distant present.

"I can't say I see you in any hurry to retire to some country estate with your books and academia," she murmured. "Nor will I, for that matter." Her eyes lit with a soft but contained excitement. "I only wish I could show you my own world. I should think it would be quite the wonder to you, especially Hollow Earth."

"The game's afoot," he said with a grin. "That's one of my, if not my favorite Shakespearian passage. And I would only hope to drive England mad."

What mad adventures indeed. Perhaps being bored would happen one day. But it would certainly be quite a ride to get there.

"And no, at least, not until I'm so old that I'm forced to sit down all day," he half-snorted. But his eyes lit up at what she had to say next. "I wish I could, too. It sounds fascinating. Wht is 'Hollow Earth,' besides well, the obvious?"

Edited 2017-05-22 14:48 (UTC)

"Hollow Earth is filled with some of the most incredible Abnormals I have ever seen divergent offshoots of so many of the surface dwelling Abnormals that it's incredibly difficult to catalogue all of them. Massive fields of mushrooms with curative properties that we have yet to puzzle out. But really, it's the civilisation that's been built that's of interest. Imagine a world where there was no dark age, where progress continued unhindered while the surface floundered. There is a whole ecosystem down there rife for exploration, new species that could very well change the face of modern medicine as we know it. For Science itself, the benefit would be immeasurable," Helen said and her words carried her excitement.

"It took me one hundred and thirteen years to aid the construction of facilities worldwide, to provide a place of safety for all Abnormal life, to direct funding and support of a facility that combined the technology of the Praxian civilisation that inhabited Hollow Earth in a capacity much like my own to that of the modern era above. Building these ports of safety, these new Hollow Earth Sanctuaries, is quite possibly the best thing to have come out of my life."

She smiled at the Shakespeare and her laugh was a silent one.

"I cannot think of you as old," she said, her cheek pressing a little against his shoulder. Her voice felt as if it came from far away, from some other Helen. "It seems almost a ridiculous notion and yet--"

It made her feel ill in spirit thinking about it, that Sherlock Holmes himself would, too, age into an elderly man. It brought back immediate and painful images of James in his last moments. It still took her breath away and made her falter like a blow to her solar plexus. His was an absence she would grieve for the rest of her life and she thought of him more than she didn't.

"That is not now," she finished. "And you have a good many years ahead of you, I should hope."

He listened in wonder, from his world it would be only in the realm of fiction, something you'd see in a movie. But it was very real, and Helen had apparently spent a century aiding this place.

"Faacinating. I really would like to see it, if that were in the realm of possibility." He doubted he'd ever be able to, but it was a nice thought.

He smirked, despite it all. "To be fair, I couldn't really imagine myself as old, either. It's only now I've really started to think I might actually end up old." There's a twinge of shame and awkwardness. Most addicts didn't make it very far. And those that did often had a bad relapse, even twenty years hence, and overdosed. Plus, not to mention the effects all that abuse must have had on his body.

"One should hope," he said quietly.

"Who knows," she said with a soft smile, "we're in a magic carnival. There are all sorts of possibilities." Helen was quiet for a long while, her touch and the way she'd leant against him almost conversation enough.

"Always hope," she finally murmured.

Always hope until the bitter end and fight and fight and fight.

He really was unused to the communication of simple touch, and certainly not the subtleties, but he understood, it seemed, it was quite universal even without knowing much about it.

"Well, if you insist," he said, with a sad sort of smirk. But it was true. John and Mary were why he was still around. (Mary, to be granted, was a bit complicated in that matter, but her death ensured that he would at least think twice before doing something particularly reckless.) Mycroft was both wrong and right in a way. Sentiment was dangerous, he'd nearly died for them multiple times. But he'd also lived because of them. At least on average, the living won out over the nearly-dying bits.

"I'm not sure if you'd find my world interesting, after all," all this experience with magic and the fantastic, despite his initial hatred of it, was starting to make his world seem a bit boring by comparison. "There's nothing odd about it except the odd interesting case and weird crime. The one person I found wonderfully challenging is dead."

"I generally do and often," Helen said quietly and then laughed just as quietly. "It's not so much your world that's the interesting part. It's how you relate to it, how you solve crimes and cases the way you do. I would be fascinated by you and by those who come into and out of your life in any world."

She closed her eyes.

"Just the one?" she asked softly. "That's a shame."

In a new light

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